Women work and health

19 April 2016 13:04

Safety Health and Environment - Women Work and Health

Improving working and living conditions for everyone is the focus of
the BWI policies, campaigns, information and training on hazards.
However, this gender-neutral focus does run the risk of being
indifferent to, or overlooking, women’s occupational health.

In 2008, the Regional and International Women’s Committees have
called for renewed efforts from the BWI Global Safety, Health and
Environment (SHE) Programme to develop specific materials, information
and organising activities for women trade unionists in our sectors.
So, welcome to the SHE webpage on Women Work and Health!

Women’s Work

Scientists, employers, decision-makers and sometimes trade unions
and even women themselves do not take women’s work-related health
problems seriously. This is because of traditional perceptions of
women’s work and the social invisibility of their labour. When we look
at statistics on health and safety at work we see that men have about
ten times more compensated industrial accidents than women. Women’s
occupational health problems may be underestimated since many diseases
and disorders are chronic and go unrecognised.

This has led to the widespread belief that women’s jobs are light,
and safe compared to men’s and has held back efforts to improve women’s
working conditions and occupational health.

Some hazards particularly affect women because of the kind of work
they do, and because of gender segregation in the workplace. For
example, many musculo-skeletal disorders (long term pain) are caused by
intensive fast paced, repetitive, monotonous work, awkward postures,
forceful movements of the hands and wrists, lack of breaks, poor and
inappropriate equipment and work stations.

This characterises women’s work in the wood and manufacturing
sector, where back, neck, shoulder, arm, wrist and hand problems are
widespread, with damage to muscles, joints, tendons and nerves. These
strain injuries are collective, occupational health problems. They are
often ignored because the injuries are attributed to factors outside
work, such as domestic work and childcare.

Women’s health

Other hazards are particularly relevant to women because of
physiological differences between men and women, and particularly taking
into account the reproductive health of women. For example, exposure
to chemical products at work. Some commonly used substances can either
affect fertility or can easily cross the placenta and affect the foetus
directly, and some cause miscarriages or malformations. Cancer-causing
substances are also mutagens. That means they damage our genetic
material and can cause infertility or malformations in the foetus.
Examples are pesticides used in timber treatments and organic solvents
contained in varnishes, lacquers, paints and in most types of wood
finishes.

Substances such as solvents and pesticides also affect the central
nervous system and cause skin problems and respiratory problems as well
as long-term damage to organs such as the liver and kidneys. Dermatitis
is twice as common in women as in men, largely because of their greater
exposure to solvents, detergents and water at work and at home. Women
have more fat in their bodies than men, and chemical substances can be
absorbed and stored in this fatty layer, so that women’s exposure is of
greater intensity and duration.

Occupational limits for exposure to chemical substances are
calculated for the “average” worker. That is a fit, healthy, young male.
They are not health-based limits in any case, but they are dangerous
levels of exposure for women.

Work Organisation and Women’s rights

Gender segregation at work undermines the effectiveness of health
and safety policies. Women are more often in monotonous jobs with high
productivity demands and little control over the content of the work.
Poor working conditions cause stress, and stress causes a whole range of
physical problems, from cardio -vascular disease to gastro -intestinal
problems.

Demands for paid maternity leave and job protection, equal pay for
work of equal value, policies to prevent sexual harassment all improve
women’s working conditions and women’s occupational health. We can
also use health and safety arguments to further support our campaigns
for equal rights at work.

Women need to educate, agitate and organise in our sectors to prevent hazards and improve working conditions.